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Anthony St Clair

The Lotus and the Barley, a Rucksack Universe Novel

Synopsis

Their entwined fate becomes his impossible choice.
A strange eclipse looms above India's city of the smiling fire. When an ancient evil awakens, the world teeters on a razor's edge of life and annihilation.
Rootless globetrotter Jay wanted Agamuskara to be just another place he visited, but the strange object in his backpack has other ideas. In the global secret order of Jakes and Jades, destiny-changing Jade Agamuskara Bluegold stands above the rest, all the while keeping up appearances as the humble proprietor of the Everest Base Camp Pub & Hostel. However, she struggles to untangle the terrible future she foresees and to ignore her doubts about her past choices. Despite themselves, both Jade and Jay befriend the evasive, stout-quaffing Faddah Rucksack—a man without a destiny who seems determined to direct their own. As fires rage in a land of ash, a backpacker, a bartender, and the world's only Himalayan-Irish sage become trapped between their entwined fate and an impossible choice.
FOREVER THE ROAD is a captivating page-turner in Anthony St. Clair's Rucksack Universe. If you like Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, or Octavia Butler, you'll love this ongoing fantasy series of globetrotting intrigue.
Buy the book to start Anthony St. Clair's tale of travel twists and turns today!

Author Biography

Fantasy author and beer writer Anthony St. Clair has walked with hairy coos in the Scottish Highlands, choked on seafood in Australia, and watched the full moon rise over Mt. Everest in Tibet. The creator of the Rucksack Universe series, Anthony has traveled the sights and beers of Thailand, Japan, India, Canada, Ireland, the USA, Cambodia, China and Nepal. He and his wife live in Eugene, Oregon, and gave their kids passports when they were babies. Learn more at www.anthonystclair.com.

Author Insight

Deep in the past

Part of the fun of The Lotus and the Barley was introducing Guru Deep. He's creepy yet charismatic, and I've hardly begun exploring the conflict and personalities between him and Rucksack.
But the Deep lineage and Rucksack go back a ways. Just this morning I was revising a section of my next Rucksack Universe book, codenamed Roadsong. This new book is set 100 years after The Blast, but before any of the books currently available. In Roadsong, Rucksack and another character save a stranger in a burning building... a stranger in an orange suit. Hmmm...

Book Excerpt

The Lotus and the Barley, a Rucksack Universe Novel

From Feckniss’s cubicle much lower down the world on the third floor of the Lotus, the phone line clicked, then droned. Guru Deep had ended the conference call. A few minutes later, Feckniss’s gray-suited manager Blanders stepped into the cubicle. He stood next to the “ILLUSION IS REALITY” poster, which some said was the true mission statement of Deep Inc.

“What’s going on, sir?” Feckniss knew they could speak freely. At this late hour, no one else was in the Lotus except for Blanders, the assistant Nia Fox, and Guru Deep himself, the man in the orange suit at the top of the Lotus, London’s highest skyscraper and currently the world’s tallest building. Despite the third floor being empty, for a moment Feckniss thought he heard a snicker, brief yet packed with cruelty and condescension. Then he thought of Guru Deep, and Feckniss shuddered with awe and relief.

Guru Deep hadn’t said a word during the briefing call. He never did, but anytime Feckniss and Blanders were in a meeting, the line was open to Guru Deep’s office. Only Blanders and Feckniss did the talking, but Guru Deep’s silences resounded more than any words, a presence like a stalking tiger or a thunderhead filling the horizon. But Feckniss could imagine him standing there: Guru Deep. The Great Leader, He Whose Third Eye Saw All The World That Was And Could Be, was the President and CEO of Deep Inc. Dealing in finance, self-help seminars, travel guidebooks, breweries, and other initiatives—that Blanders hinted at but never explained—over the last few decades Deep Inc. had become of the world’s largest and most powerful companies.